Plan To Halt Redfish Sales Makes Waves

March 15, 1986|By Catherine Hinman of The Sentinel Staff

MELBOURNE — A proposed ban on the sale of redfish in Florida could cost the economies of Brevard and Volusia counties close to $1 million this year and devastate the businesses of some commercial fishermen, an industry spokesman said Friday.

Jerry Sansom, executive director of the Organized Fishermen of Florida, said East Coast fisherman pulled in 140,000 pounds of redfish last year, at least two-thirds of which was caught in the rivers and estuaries of Brevard and Volusia counties. The economic ''ripple effect'' generated by the sale of the East Coast catch would total $1 million, he said.

The state Marine Fisheries Commission announced this week that it would propose to Gov. Bob Graham and his Cabinet a ban on the sale of redfish. The commission, which believes that the redfish are endangered, already has succeeded in imposing restrictions on the size of individual redfish that may be caught.

In proposing the ban, the commission is saying that recreational fishermen, who catch 88 percent of all redfish landed in the state, carry more economic weight than the fishing industry, Sansom said. More than 5 million people fish for sport in Florida each year. ''It's a straight economic allocation,'' Sansom said. The sales ban ''is going to have absolutely no impact on the future of the fish as far as its ecological viability.''

Lee Schlesinger, spokesman for the fisheries commission in Tallahassee, agreed that recreational fishermen have done some damage to the redfish population, but he said that sportsmen don't fish for quantity. One commercial boat ''with a very efficient net can take all the fish out in one day,'' he said. ''The bottom line is, there is damage being done.''

Sansom said the commercial fishermen's redfish catch is a big source of income during the fall and winter, when other varieties of fish are not available.